Love,
April (Your Future Mom, but only when she is living another life, far away from here)
Thirty-Two
Robin
BY THE TIME Robin got back up to her desk, Quentin Garrison’s death was all over social media. The facts of it first: his body discovered in Tarry Ridge Park, dead of a single gunshot wound to the head. Then came the players: Quentin’s coworkers at KAMC in Los Angeles. His coproducer, Summer Hawkins, leaving the station in tears. His husband, Dean Conrad, photographed in the parking lot of the university where he taught, his face pale, his jaw slack, as though he’d had the life knocked out of him. The old mug shot of Quentin’s mother.
The hot takes on Twitter and then the reporters—dozens more of them direct messaging Robin, emailing her at work, still more calling in, to the point where Eileen suggested she go home early without her even having to ask. Robin headed for Grand Central and took the 2:45 P.M. train home, Quentin Garrison on her mind the entire time—how he’d been found dead in a park near a playground, and when she’d spoken to him two and a half days ago, she’d heard children’s voices in the background. Had he still been at the same park when he’d texted her that night? Or had he left, then returned after emailing his confession?
At least the police detail no longer seemed necessary. And once she got past the two reporters who remained at the foot of her driveway and entered the house and saw her mother sitting in the living room watching the news, a blanket thrown over her waist, she felt a bit relieved over that. “I was trying to make salmon tarragon,” Mom said. “But I got a bit tired.”
“You rest, Mom,” she said. “Rest for as long as you like.”
Her mother was heading home tonight—there was no stopping that, so Eric and Robin had insisted on joining her. But it was good to see that she wasn’t pushing herself to pack just yet. Renee said, “Did you hear about him?”
Robin sat down on the couch beside her. Tried to read her face. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“That poor boy. He never had a chance.”
Robin looked at her. On the way home, she’d read as many articles as she could about her parents’ shooting—making up for lost time—and she’d learned that an anonymous caller had spotted Quentin driving through her parents’ neighborhood the night of the murders and, at another point, stopped in front of the Blooms’ home. As though he were staking it out. “Mom,” Robin said. “He killed Dad in cold blood. And he tried to kill you.”
But she didn’t appear to hear her. “Such a violent, ugly way to go. He can’t even have an open casket.”
“Are you okay?” Robin said.
Renee stood up. “Not really,” she said, moving toward the stairs. “There’s been too much death lately. That poor boy. It isn’t fair to anyone.” She shook her head and trudged upstairs, her thoughts as much a mystery as ever.
AS RENEE LAY napping upstairs, Robin heard Eric’s footsteps jogging up to the door. She’d been reading a Jodi Picoult book she’d bought a few months ago and it had been nice, getting lost in the pages, avoiding the flood of messages and news alerts, the inescapable, constant buzz. Her mother wasn’t on social media—barely ever even checked her email, and Robin felt she lived a better life for it, especially now.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” he said. “Your voice mail is full.”
“I don’t even know where I put my phone.”
“You’ve heard the news,” he said. “Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
He headed into the kitchen. “Your mom must be relieved,” he called out from inside.
“You’d think so, but not really,” Robin said.
“It probably just hasn’t hit her yet.”
He came out with two glasses of wine.
“How did you know what I wanted?”
“It doesn’t take a mind reader.”
Robin took a long sip, the wine white and crisp and cold. Eric sat next to her on the couch and put an arm around her. They drank in silence for several minutes. “I should probably order a pizza,” he said.
“How about Chinese?”
“You got it.”
He didn’t move, though. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
Robin smiled. “My mom is literally right upstairs.”
“No. I mean . . . Don’t you think it’s time we got out our side of the story?”
She took a swallow of wine. “What do you mean?”
“There are wingnuts on Twitter still saying that Garrison shot your parents because of your column.”
“Who cares?”
“I’m just saying. You’ve got a great chance to set the record straight.”
She put her glass down. “Are you seriously asking me to go on Anger Management?”
“It isn’t such a bad idea, is it? And it wouldn’t be you. It would be your mom. She’s the one everyone wants to hear from.”
She stood up. “You’d better be joking.”
He gave her a tight smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I’m just kidding around.”
“Seriously?”
“I am. Yeah.”
“Why would you even joke about something like that?”
“It was just a dumb joke, Robin. Let it go.”
ONCE THE THREE of them had finished dinner, Renee and Robin and Eric headed to their rooms to pack up, Eric unusually quiet all the while. Robin waited till she heard the door to the guest room close before she turned to Eric. “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on with you?”
He sat down on the bed, motioned for her to sit next to him. Beneath his clean soap scent, she smelled sweat. Fear. “I didn’t want you or your mother to come on Anger Management,” he said. “I hope you believe me on that.”
She looked at him. “You said you were joking.”
“I wasn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
He stared at his hands. “Look, if I don’t tell you this now, you’re going to hear it from somebody else.”
“Tell me what?”
“One of Shawn’s producers. A new girl. Young. Her name is Ginny.”
Robin’s eyes widened. Proud Mama to My Furbabies, Yoga Is Life, God Bless the USA. “GinnyMarie?” she said.
“Yeah. How did you . . .”
“I don’t want to know.”
“If I don’t tell you, she will.”
“Why? Does she think I’ll leave you?”
“Probably.” He took a deep breath, in and out. “Look, she’s a big fan of yours. She reads your column. She loves it when you get the hate tweets. She thinks it’s awesome you can so routinely stir up controversy over something as safe and benign as films.”
She glared at him. “Are you trying to get me to be friends with your mistress?”
“What? No. She’s not my mistress.” He sighed. “She’s fucking trying to blackmail me.”
“What?”
“She wants you on the show. She always has. But now more than ever. Obviously.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Right. So . . . if I can’t get you, which I can’t . . . She’s going to tell the whole world about me. Page 6. The Cut. But worst of all . . . you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My job.”
“I know about your job.”
“No,” he said. “Listen.” He took another deep breath. “About a year ago, I was contacted by a woman. She worked at a fancy restaurant in Midtown. One of Shawn’s favorites, and the type of place he would like.”
She nodded. “Yeah?”
“So anyway, I met with her. She’d been a waitress there for years, and she gave me an earful. Unsanitary conditions in the kitchen. Bullying atmosphere. Sexual harassment like you wouldn’t believe. She couldn’t place an order without getting a dick in her hand.”
“Ugh.”
“And it wasn’t just her. She said she came to me because she drew the short straw. Everybody was terrified of the owner, but they all a
greed that it couldn’t go on.”
“That sounds like a great story. If she was telling the truth.”
“I had her take a polygraph test. She passed with flying colors.”
“Wow.”
“It didn’t end there. A second source came forward. A dishwasher. She said the owner had raped her. Didn’t want to give her name. But she said she’d appear on camera if we blurred her face, disguised her voice.”
Robin frowned. “I don’t remember this story airing.”
He looked at her. “It never aired.”
“Why?”
He exhaled. “Because the owner—Charlie Maxwell—is a buddy of Shawn’s.”
“Oh . . .” Robin said, the name clicking in her head. Charlie Maxwell. Celebrity chef. Had his own show on the Food Network for about three minutes. Owner of Chez Chas. “This was last year.”
“Right.”
“I’d . . . Someone told me she’d seen you there. At his restaurant . . .”
“She took me to the place. Introduced me to Maxwell, so I could see for myself what a douchebag he was. She told him I was her brother. He grabbed her ass right in front of me. She did everything but give me a thumbs-up. She thought I was filming him with my phone.”
“You weren’t?”
He shook his head. “Shawn told me to convince this woman we were going to take the story, wine her and dine her, do anything and everything I could to get her to trust me enough to sign a nondisclosure agreement and a noncompete.”
“Eric,” she said. “I don’t know that I want to hear any more.”
“I sweet-talked her. Told her Charlie wouldn’t even be able to run a McDonald’s when we were through with him. She signed the NDA. Gave us exclusive rights to the story. Then we killed it. Shawn told Charlie. She lost her job.”
Robin couldn’t speak.
“She told me I was an embarrassment to journalism. A total sleazebag. I couldn’t disagree, because I was. I am.”
Outside the door, Robin’s mother called out, “You guys ready soon?”
“Just a minute,” Robin said, returning her gaze to her husband. All these months, she’d thought he had an affair. That might have been preferable. At least he would have still been the person she thought he was.
Eric took her hand in his. It was warm, his palm sweaty. “I don’t want us to have any more secrets.”
Robin closed her eyes, trying to wrap her thoughts around it, all kinds of memories moving through her head of the old Eric, the man she’d fallen in love with, the crusading young journalist who wanted to help good people, not destroy them. This is going to make me sound like a jackass, but I want to write stories that save lives.
She opened her eyes. “We all start out so pure, don’t we?”
“I want to find my way back.”
“So do I.”
He kissed her, softly. “You’re already there, Robin,” he said. “You’ve always been there.”
“No. I haven’t.”
“I’ve never cheated on you.”
“All right.”
“I’ve done some shitty things for Shawn, but that Charlie Maxwell thing was by far the worst.”
“It’s bad, Eric.”
“I told you I’d pissed people off,” he said. “Do you still love me?”
“We need to pack up,” she said. “My mom needs to get to her house.” She was well aware that she hadn’t answered the question.
RENEE’S HOME NO longer looked like a murder house. She’d had a cleaning service come in during the day, and so when they arrived there at 10:00 P.M., the place was spotless, everything smelling of pine, the missing Indian rug the only clue that anything bad had ever happened there. There were no reporters outside either. And so, after her mother had gone to bed and she and Eric had set themselves up in the comfortable guest room that had once been her bedroom, it was easy for her to imagine her dad alive, one room over, snoring beside her mom, a book open in front of him.
Robin threw a T-shirt on and got into the double bed next to Eric, who was wearing his boxer briefs, nothing else. “Do you still love me?” he whispered in the dark.
“Yes.”
“I love you too.”
She inhaled the scent of his cologne, her favorite, worn only for her. “Eric?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you going to do when the news comes out?”
“It won’t.”
“Huh?”
“If that story comes out, it’s not just me that goes down. It’s Shawn. It’s the show. And Ginny doesn’t want to lose her job any more than I do.”
Eric snuggled into Robin’s side, his arm against her belly. She closed her eyes and tried to find sleep, because she didn’t want to be awake with Eric. Not anymore. “What about the waitress?” she said finally. “She lost her job.” But Eric didn’t answer. He was already asleep.
Thirty-Three
Summer
SUMMER HAWKINS HAD known about Quentin’s death for twenty-four hours, but she didn’t allow herself to cry about it until after she’d dropped Dean off at the airport. It felt like an indulgence, weeping over a friend, even a best friend (and Quentin had been Summer’s very best friend), with his husband right beside you, unable to cry or even speak.
Summer had been the first person Dean had called, right after he’d heard the news from the Tarry Ridge police. He’d told her before his sister, before his parents. “I am letting you know first,” he had said. “I know you’re hurting as much as me.”
She wasn’t, of course. How could anyone be hurting as much as Dean? But what she felt over Quentin now was nearly as painful—a mix of sorrow and anger and worst of all, guilt. This was what Summer would never tell Dean: as awful as she felt about Quentin’s suicide, it hadn’t surprised her.
Ever since she’d met him, at a friend’s party during their sophomore year of college, Summer had sensed something off in Quentin Garrison, something broken. It may have been what had drawn her to him in the first place, fixer that she was—that faraway look he’d get when he thought no one was watching him, the way he’d deflect personal questions with jokes or how sometimes, when he’d had a few drinks, he’d get tears in his eyes . . .
Most people didn’t see Quentin as troubled, or even unhappy. They thought he was an overachiever and a bit of a grade grubber, his hand constantly in the air during their creative nonfiction class, always asking overly complicated questions. But Summer knew people. She could see them for who they truly were, and there was so much to Quentin. So much he refused to show.
Senior year, he finally told her. The two of them had been sitting on the floor of her tiny studio apartment just before dawn, stoned out of their minds and talking endlessly as they always did, about politics and philosophy and the hidden meanings behind old Talking Heads songs. And then Quentin had gone quiet. “I want to tell you something,” he had said. “It’s hard for me to say.”
Summer had taken an enormous hit off the bong, her mind racing with crazy imaginings—the sort of unrealistic expectations that embarrassed her now, but had seemed entirely possible back then, when she was a self-absorbed, twenty-one-year-old virgin with an all-consuming crush on her gay best friend. Say it, Summer had thought. Say it, and I will run away with you. But what Quentin had said was this: “My mother hates me.”
Quentin hadn’t said any more than that, but he hadn’t needed to. Summer finally had a reason for the sadness that lurked just beneath that cheery surface, ready to pounce and devour. And now that she knew where it came from, she could defeat it. She could put him back together.
Summer had a big, noisy family back in New Rochelle, New York, and she took Quentin there for Thanksgiving and Christmas, convincing them to accept him as one of their own. When she got a job at KAMC immediately after graduation, she dragged Quentin in too as a package deal. And five years ago, she’d done something even better than either of those things. She’d gone onto his Grindr, found Dean Conrad, and sent him the messag
e that had started their relationship. (“9.5” it had said. A slight exaggeration, probably, but screw it. It had worked.)
Summer had fixed Quentin. Or so she’d convinced herself. She’d been halfway to Brittlebush yesterday when she’d gotten the call. Dean’s voice over the phone, cracking, breaking. “It isn’t like him,” he kept saying, over and over. “None of this is like him.”
She’d turned around, sped back to her apartment to find Dean waiting there for her. She’d taken him inside, the poor guy, so genuinely hurt and confused. She’d made the plane reservation for Dean so he could identify Quentin’s body and bring his ashes home and stayed up with him all night drinking scotch and staring at CNN, and then she’d taken him to the airport at 4:30 A.M., her head throbbing. The entire time, the two of them had barely spoken.
Summer had been glad for the silence. What was she supposed to say? There was so much that Dean had never known about his husband. He had no idea that two weeks after his mother’s funeral, Quentin had told Summer he wanted to drive his car off an overpass. He hadn’t known how many times she’d had to cover for Quentin when he didn’t show up at work during that same period, or about the empty bottles of Klonopin she’d found in his desk. When Summer had talked to Dean about convincing Quentin to do Closure, he had no clue how desperate she was to get him fixed again or that she saw the podcast as a lifeline, a last chance. How could she tell Dean about all that now? How could she say that it actually was like Quentin to kill himself?
Shooting the Blooms, though. That wasn’t like him at all.
She thought about that as she got on the on-ramp for the 405, her eyes blurred from crying, her cheeks wet and stinging, her throat feeling as though it had been rubbed with sandpaper. As argumentative as Quentin could be when you backed him into a corner, as self-destructive as he could become if given half a chance, he’d never hurt another person. Not the Quentin she knew. And though he had a tendency to hide things, shooting two people and killing one was simply too big a thing to hide. Wasn’t it? Did she not know her best friend as well as she thought she did?
She recalled all the conversations she’d had with him since Mitchell Bloom’s death. All the updates and exchanges of information and the thinking aloud they’d done on the shooting. Not one of those conversations had made her feel as though there were something Quentin wasn’t telling her.
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